Forever is not for everyone
by DamadiSangue
Summary: "I wanted to live, Al." Wesker closes his eyes, closes his eyelids so hard to see white and red lights explode in his head. "I really wanted it, but I couldn't."


"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."  
\- C.S. Lewis -

**Forever is not for everyone**

"You're lying to me, _old man_. "  
"I could never, Dr. Wesker."  
"It's impossible."  
"Don't you feel it? Can't you_ feel_ it?"  
"No. That's_ why_ you're telling me a bunch of crap. **He**'d tell me; **he** never lies."  
The truth is always the victim of our most tenacious hopes.

**1.**

"It's killing you."  
Wesker squints his eyes, lets his hands dangle between his thighs.  
"Albert."  
"It's _helping_ me."  
Fingers light on his cheekbones, along the neck.  
"Are you in such a hurry to see me again, Al? I thought you wanted to change the world: _improve_ it."  
The serum invades and _burns_ under his skin.

**2008**

She's afraid, Alex.  
**She**, who had made of her defeat a bulwark.  
**She**, who feared _no_ evil - who laughed in the face of Death and her _foolish_ claims to have her.  
She inhales, breaks that desperate breath in half - turns around, and finds herself alone.

_Always._

Death now has the face of everything she had lost.

**2.**

She sees a different man coming down the ladder of the plane.  
He is a confused,_ uncertain_ man - who stumbles in his own steps.  
Excella tightens her purse with the missing doses of PG67A/W inside, she smiles.

_I'm _here_, Albert. __**For**__ you. __**With**__ you. Always._

Wesker's naked eyes are so human that they take her breath away.

**2008**

"Master Alex!"  
He tries, Stuart; _tries_ with all the strength he possesses.

_It isn't enough._

The virus has _decided_, the disease has_ won._  
Her conscience clings to the edges of an increasingly weaker reality, Alex snags her teeth in a bestial snarl - _explodes_, and pours blood from her eyes, between her thighs.  
Whole genomic sequences disintegrate, they become a loose mush on the bottom of a body now at its most extreme.  
Alex senses the needle, Stuart's hands on her chest - one, two. One, two. One, two.

_Just give up._

All that remains of her humanity screams and **_screams._**

**3.**

"Do you really care about my company, uhm?"  
"Always."  
A laugh; the clink of her rose gold and diamonds bracelets.  
"Sincerity suits you, Albert."  
Wesker flexes forward, studies the progress of the Uroboros - its _reckless_ voracity.  
She sits down beside him, undoing the white blazer.  
"What will you do when it will be complete?"  
Wesker's pupil _trembles_, his hand _doesn't:_ in front of them the coils of the snake unfold without any obstacle.

**2008**

She didn't have time to say goodbye.

_She didn't want to._

Her heart accelerates, the lungs collapse.  
Hepatic necrosis, renal failure, myocardial cell death.  
Stuart worries about her - fights_ for_ her.

_Old friend of mine._

The virus wraps itself around what remains of her mind and _changes_ \- its inexorable path to (**non**) life begins.  
Alex grabs his wrist with fingers that she doesn't recognize - blackish and swollen - she opens heavy lips, smelling of blood and metal.  
"The head." she manages to murmur.  
Stuart stares at her, opens his mouth, then closes it suddenly.  
"The atlas. The _bone_." and it is a hiss that succeeds in exhaling - a sound of throat, not hers.  
"You know what you have to do, Stuart."  
Death, after all, never awaits anyone.

**4.**

"Excella has been looking for you."  
Silence.  
"She is worried."  
"I don't care."  
"I seem to remember you needed her money."  
"Not anymore. The project is complete."  
"Oh."  
Wesker gives her an oblique look, nods.  
"Valentine's antibodies ..."  
"I didn't use them: I dropped her body five days ago."  
Now she is silenced, a bare foot over the edge of the bed and a curious, young look.  
"Al." she calls him.

_Albert._

Regret is a poison that has **no** cure.

**2008**

"_What did you do_ to her, old man?"  
"Just what she asked me."  
"I want to see her."  
Stuart inhales, tormenting his hands.  
"She is not ... she is not what you remember, Dr. Wesker: _not at all_, at least."  
Wesker tilts his chin slightly towards him, he is silent.  
"The Progenitor had already begun his ..._ mutation_."  
Hard, martial - rigid steps.  
"Doctor Wesker, I don't know if it's the case of..."  
Anger extinguishes every other reflection.

**5.**

"It will smell worse than a goat in the August sun." Irving replies, sniffling.  
"Less and less than you, Ricardo." Excella replies, angry.  
Irving accompanies her to the elevator doors, shrugs - check if he still has some _dust_ in his trouser pockets.  
"_As you wish_, Excella: after all, you're the one who _rides_ him, not me."  
Excella tightens her lips in a thin line - _low blow_ \- and Ricardo frees a thin giggle, almost the squeak of a mouse.  
"Oh. _Oh_, look; has your handsome, dark man, closed his underpants?"  
"It's none of your business."  
"No, but it's always fun to see you pissed off."  
"He's _sick_."  
Irving raises an eyebrow, skeptical.  
"It's a _fucking_ B.O.W. of alpha level: his dick doesn't fall off even if you cut it and you tell me he is _sick?_"  
Excella presses the call button of the lift, taps one foot on the floor - waits.  
"A month ago he left in a hurry for I don't know_ where_ and when he came back ... well, let's say he wasn't the same anymore."  
The elevator reaches the floor, Excella turns, convinced to find on Ricardo's face that usual arrogant and irritating smile and...  
"_Go away_, Excella."  
Silence.  
Irving rubs his index finger under his nose, inhales harder, his cheeks pale, suddenly livid.  
"And why should I?"  
"Because he will make us kill everyone, that's _why_."  
Excella frowns, confused: Irving swallows, stares at her.  
"I don't believe in your addicted feelings, Ricardo."  
"And you are _wrong_: because I can recognize a madman when I sees one. And your dear _Dr. Wesker_ has just crossed that limit."  
Excella enters the elevator and ignores every other word.

**2008**

The Tower shouts, it turns red and_ red._  
Under a white sheet rests the cruel Grimilde of a phantom island - a few meters from her the faithful Servant, nothing more than a flower of flesh and blood that the desperation of the Knight had left to _explode_ against the wall.

_"Doctor Wesker, I don't know if that's the case..."_

No, it was _not._  
His hands acted even before the thought, the virus a beast without a chain and _alone._  
Wesker listens to the trembling ground, stares at what remains of Alex - he dimly understands that there is something disproportionate in the way her head pulls away from the neck.

_In the too long legs and the bulging bust on the right, like William._

People scream, rushing to armored doors now sealed by the self-destruct program.  
Wesker closes his eyes and_ breathes._

**6.**

"Let me go."  
"I can't."  
Warm and soft skin - pale and thin lashes.  
"You don't _want_, that's different."  
Wesker stretches his fingers towards her face, senses her solidity under his fingertips - in his heart.  
"Soon."  
"I know."  
Wesker closes his eyes, nods - he smiles without any joy.  
Strange how the fate of one person condemns that of an entire world.

**2008**

He doesn't know where to take he.  
He holds a white, crumpled bundle to his chest - he holds her head against his chest, trying not to pay attention to what deviates from her natural position.  
The Tower _collapses,_ it is reduced to a pile of rubble and dust behind them - but he continues to walk towards the woods, disoriented.  
He is now near a tangle of brambles when he sees her - he_ hears_ her.  
"I always liked the ocean." she tells him, pointing at the dark waves attacking the beach with her chin.  
Wesker stops, stares at her, strengthening his grip around her body.  
Her eyes move instinctively on the baffled sheet and then she folds her lips into a grimace - she snorts.  
"Let me go, Al." she repeats quietly "The sea will know what to do."

_You know what to do._

Wesker blinks once, twice: he doesn't see her anymore.  
He clench his teeth together, moves one foot forward - prepares to find a place to bury her when...

_Albert._

Her fingers burn with all the promises he couldn't keep.

**7.**

It is _shame_ that turns his eyes  
It is _anger_ that animates his gestures - his_ will._  
It is_ disappointment_ the solid lump that crushes his chest, his conscience.  
"It's not your fault."  
Bright, obsessed eyes.  
"You couldn't have saved me anyway."  
"Bullshit."  
A half-hearted smile - beautiful.

_Lost._

"Oh, Albert: you always thought you were smarter than me."  
"I am."  
"Arrogant to the end."  
_I'm already at the end_, he would like to tell her, but her hair has the same scent as_ then_ \- the same consistency between his fingers, on his skin.  
"Everyone will die."  
"I know."  
"And is that what you want?"  
His lips are cold as his heart.

**2008**

"The protocol would have wanted me to burn myself; to disperse my ashes in the sea only after containing the biological risk."  
Wesker observes the white sheet floating, a blurred and ragged spot from the imperious rocks of the island.  
A sigh; Sushestvovanie's icy breath.  
"I guess it doesn't matter anymore."  
"How did it happen?"  
Quiet steps, which reach him on the top of the promontory in silence.  
"I don't know."  
"_Lier_."  
A shrug; the clink of bracelets against the white gold watch.  
"I am dead, Albert. The virus must have defiled my defenses and found a defective gene, considering me, finally, _unworthy_."  
He tilts his chin to the right, he stares at her - he lays a look on her_ full_ of everything, which hits her like a fist straight in the face.  
"Al." she calls him - she_ begs_ him.  
The earth shakes and **splits** \- cries a pain that has no name_ yet._  
Love is, in the end, a cruel murderer.

**8.**

"You know, I should really thank you."  
Wesker rests his forehead against the shower tiles, listens.  
"I spent the best years with you."  
The water falls on the floor in large drops - heavy, dense.  
"I wanted to live, Al."  
Wesker closes his eyes, closes his eyelids so hard to see white and red lights explode in his head.  
"I _really_ wanted it, but I _couldn't_."  
"You don't have to apologize."  
Thin arms, which hold him from behind; a body that shapes itself to his - warm, reddened by boiling water.  
"Once I dreamed that _I was free_, Al: that I could live. That the experiment was a_ success_ and I found myself in the body of a girl of just ten years."  
Wesker intertwines his fingers with hers, tightens.  
"I also remember the name; Natalia. Natalia Korda."  
A grimace: a remorse cut in half by anger.  
"But _you_ were dead, Al."  
Silence.  
"Perhaps tragedy is a family matter, after all."  
Wesker flexes forward and _collapses._

**2008**

"Sushestvovanie must disappear."  
Tricell's men listen to him silently, nod.  
"Cut off every activity, every house, set fire to the fields, to the land. Seal the mines and kill _anyone_ who fights to resistance. I want _nothing,_ but rock and salt left of that place.",  
"It will be done, Dr. Wesker."  
"Once the first part is finished, let it_ explode_; reduce it to a hole in the middle of the ocean."  
The soldiers look at each other, synchronize the watches, check the necessary equipment - they become the invisible fingers of a merciless and cruel god.  
Wesker observes them swarming with a voracious gaze - which wants and _demands._  
"I'm a little sorry." her voice reaches him - and she is there, at his side.

_As always._

She touches his shoulder with her own, then leans against the heavy black coat.  
"Albert, look at me."  
"No."  
"_Al_."  
Wesker closes his eyes, shakes his head - it's _impossible_, it must be a joke of the virus, something that _doesn't work_ as it should and...  
Her mouth is all he can feel.

**9.**

He is a nervous man who shows up in her office, suddenly aged.  
His face bent in a disgusted grimace, eyes gleaming with fever and anger - barely concealed by dark lenses.  
"Excella." he calls her, and she answers -_ always._  
"I need a last effort." he tells her, and she believes in it - _always._  
"The Uroboros is almost complete: soon you will have at your feet the world you _deserve._" he promises to her, and she smiles - touches his shoulder, his chest.

_The heart._

"You had me worried." he confesses, and Wesker stares at her out of the corner of his eye - he _studies_ her.  
Excella slips with the tip of the forefinger towards the wrist, lingers - frees a dry, _tense_ laugh.  
"You haven't left your apartments for more than a month."  
"I had to _think_."  
Excella nods, then frowns - seems to want to push away a troubling and worrying thought.  
"On what?"  
"On the virus."  
"What happened on that island, Albert?"  
Silence.  
Excella looks up and looks for it.  
"Delta team and Bravo. I read their reports."  
Wesker thins his lips, tilts his chin towards her.  
"Security protocol A; total cancellation of subjects and place. Four biosecurity risk. Absolute remediation."  
"An experiment gone wrong."  
Excella closes her fingers around his wrist, tightens.  
"I'm_ not_ stupid, Albert."  
Other, obstinate, silent.  
"Something has gone _more_ than wrong on that island."  
_Tells to her,_ her voice murmurs; _tells her, Albert. There is nothing left to hide now._  
"It's all written in the file."  
"_Bullshit_."  
"You shouldn't question me, Excella."  
"You are_ lying_ to me."  
"I would **never** do that."  
Excella inspires with strength, chooses to believe him - to be executioner and _not_ a victim of her own destiny.  
Some secrets are the only poison we need.

**2008**

"You know I'm not real, do you?"  
Wesker grinds his teeth, rests his neck against the helicopter's bulkhead.  
A Sergio Rossi model Godiva prods his thigh - then leans on his legs.  
"Or maybe _yes._ Maybe the virus kept a small part of me alive inside you and now I breathe_ in you,_ Albert: wouldn't it be romantic?"  
Wesker gives her a fleeting, confused look.  
"The memory protein and all that bullshit our dear Progenitor is capable of; after all, when you exclude the impossible, what remains, however unlikely, must be the truth, quoting Holmes."  
"You are dead."  
"I know."  
"You were getting worse."  
"_I remember_ my condition well, Al."  
_Why you didn't tell me anything,_ his eyes murmur; _why, Alex?_  
Her sad smile is more than enough.

**10.**

"Do you remember that time in the lab, with Will?"  
Wesker looks up at the ceiling, nods.  
"Those mice were bigger than an adult Saint Bernard." Alex chuckles, narrowing her eyes.  
"Annette almost killed him before them."  
"Oh, not that good old Will was _easy_ to kill."  
"No." agrees Wesker "He would_ never_ give up without a fight."  
Alex is silent, she bites her lower lip - inhales, holding back a lump of sadness and tears in her throat.  
"He didn't even know _how_ to use that gun."  
"He was _a total_ incompetent."  
"Indeed."  
"Indeed." echoes Wesker, turning to her and finding her the same as always - _before_ and_ after._  
Alex looks at him, giving him a soft smile - the kind that had rarely lit her face, her eyes.  
"You will feel _tremendously_ alone without me, Al."  
Wesker stares at her, is silent - she burns his skin, his breath.  
"Will you rip off the arms of gingerbread men for me? And those crooked little legs? You know how much I hate their stupid and happy expression."  
"It's not Christmas, Alex: we're in the middle of August."  
"I know. I know, but I'd love to see you do it; you looked like a little asshole even as a child."  
Wesker's laugh is a soundless cry.

**2008**

"We never ran away from those labs, Al."  
Wesker fastens his shirt cuff, loosens his shoulders.  
"We're still _there,_ Al: hidden in the dark, devoured by needles and** his** hands."  
Straighten the collar, smoothing the shirt.  
"And we're _screaming,_ Al; we're screaming, but nobody hears us."  
A Patek Philippe, platinum case, shiny black squared alligator strap.  
"We cling to the reinforced glass to pierce our skin; we pour _blood,_ and they collect it to see what color it has, what they can do with it."  
He removes the dark blue jacket from the closet, wears it - muscles that contract, they slip under the fabric of a Kiton suit.  
"They take tissues, ova,sperm: they analyze, compare, _hybridize_."  
Wesker clears his throat, opens a small case containing blue contact lenses like his eyes _before._  
"We are their vanguard; the offspring of a sick and_ rotten_ old man."  
First the left iris, then the right; a slight burning on the bottom of the orbit, nothing more than a transient tingle.  
"We are a _project_, an experiment: bags of meat to be filled and emptied. Race horses, _breeding_ beasts."  
Wesker fastens the second button on his jacket, checks the cufflinks in gold and sapphires he wears - gives Excella the profile of an already dead man.  
"Does it taste like you expected revenge, Al?"  
Wesker lifts his chin, stares at her from the reflection in the mirror - gold threads around his face, floating in the shadows of the room.  
Alex reaches for his ear and _murmurs._

**11.**

Irving sniffs, rubbing his forefinger under his nostrils a couple of times - enough to hide the white that has just awakened his brain.  
"You_ fucker_."  
Wesker ignores him, opens his fingers in front of him - turns the screens of the analysis room into a very black and sprawling monster.  
"Shit." murmurs Ricardo, fixing what should purify the world.  
Wesker rotates his fingers in an invisible knob and the Uroboros_ roars_ \- its proteins align, the virions triple.  
"You and Excella want to release ... _this?_" he peeping, reading the mortality rate, the speed of replication and the infectious factor enumerated on the side.  
Wesker gives him a look over his shoulder, he is silent.  
Irving inhales vigorously, shakes his head - backs away.  
"You ... you, you are _fucking_ crazy."  
The Uroboros grows, knows no limits - satiety.  
"You will kill** all**."  
"It's none of your business." replies Wesker, and his voice is rough - broken at the corners, rusty.  
"Does Excella know?"  
Wesker turns, stands over him - Irving understands.

_Too late._

In the last few moments the satisfaction of having understood _before_ Excella even surpasses fear.

**2008**

The mouth of Excella is soft, the lights are stunning.  
Under the tongue champagne and desire - among the fingers the key to the new world.  
Wesker tilts her head back, exposing a pale and defenseless throat - fragile.  
_Don't play with food,_ murmurs Alex, and change with every breath - every beat.  
Now it's the one that remembers, the moment after a little girl with peeled knees and a merciless, cruel look.  
She walks by his side, she wraps around his shoulders like a very white and spiteful serpent - she changes skin, never name.  
Wesker grabs his conscience one last time - Excella's hips, the clinking of glasses that reverberate in his ears, between his ribs.  
_Albert,_ she calls him.  
_Albert,_ she invokes him.  
_Albert_ , she frees him.  
His mind falls and shatters into a thousand splinters that always and only reflect** her.**

**12.**

"She loves you."  
Wesker closes his eyes, leans back.  
"Isn't her love worth anything to you?"  
"No."  
"Liar."  
"She has always been a _means_, never an end."  
Alex crosses her legs between them, rolls up on the desk in front of him.  
"Lies and still lies : you really can't do anything else, Al?"  
Wesker squints an eyelid, stares at her.  
"I _never_ loved her."  
"But she _did_: even if you made yourself hateful, even cruel. Even if you showed her your worst face, wearing the lorica of the villain of the story."  
Wesker is silent, he also opens the other eye and Alex finds there a worn-out, absolute tiredness.  
"I guess that's the pledge to pay, right?" he retorts, dry.  
Alex raises an eyebrow, bends a corner of her mouth in the shadow of a smile.  
"It becomes impossible to leave what you love: even if you poison yourself day after day."  
"Chris Redfield is an example." Alex replies, leaning towards his face "You know he's still out there looking for Jill, right?"  
"He can always find her in the stomach of some hyena or lion."  
"What a _ruthless_ man you are." Alex chuckles, and Wesker squeezes her face between thumb and forefinger, pressing his fingers into her pale cheek.  
"I am _what_ I wanted to be."  
Alex is silent, studies him carefully - then smiles, devoid of malice.  
"Oh, Albert. That's what we've always told each other, you and I, uh? That our will counted for something; that _we could be_, not just _pretend_."  
"Not _with you_."  
Silence.  
"With you I _never_ faked anything."

_Nothing I didn't want to be. __**For**__ you. __**With**__ you._

Alex rests her forehead against his and closes her eyes.

**2008**

Canapes with smoked salmon and zucchini mousse.  
Shreds of meat, explosions of silk and organza.  
Quail eggs with truffles on baked croutons.  
Loose, burnt skin - blackish and liquid spots, slimy underfoot, between the toes.  
Vintage glasses, crystal _cries._  
Flower lanterns, human torches - that_ run_ and come alive with a life that no longer belongs to them.  
Wesker brings the flute to his lips, tastes just a 1990 Methuselah Louis Roederer - Millennium Cuvé.  
The world_ burns_, everything around him dies - reborn, _transcend._  
Excella brings her fist to her mouth, opens her eyes - steps back on a couple of Stuart Weitzmans studded with diamonds.  
"What did you do?" she murmurs - begs.  
Venetian brocades, snakes of guts and blood along the walls, on the marble floor.  
Excella takes a step, then another - beautiful with her hair down on her shoulders, between her breasts.  
"_What did you do?_" she screams, and there it is all her anger - her indignant and outraged force.  
Wesker stares at her over the edge of the flute and_ smiles._

**13.**

He murmurs a song for him in the harsh language of Sushestvovanie,

Тили-тили-бом, Закрой глаза скорее,  
kто-то ходит за окном, И стучится в двери. (1)

She laughs against his skin, caressing his temples, his cheekbones.  
"How long have you not slept, Al?"

Тили-тили-бом, kричит ночная птица.  
Он уже пробрался в дом, К тем, кому не спится.

_Four months_, he would like to answer.  
_Always,_ the truth.

Он идет, oн уже, близко ...

She welcomes him between her thighs, hugging him as before - _when._

Тили-тили-бом.  
Ты слышишь, кто-то рядом?  
Притаился за углом, И пронзает взглядом.

And she's warm, Alex; a hot breath that breaks his, a desire that has transparent eyes, voracious lips - demanding.

Тили-тили-бом, kричит ночная птица.  
Он уже пробрался в дом, К тем, кому не спится.

She kisses him, and doesn't become dust in his arms - against his chest.

Он идет, oн уже, близко ...

Alex frees a gasp in half, changes the positions, welcoming him in a single, fluid thrust - _scratches_, cutting into his navel, along a painful and desperate erection.

Тили-тили-бом.  
Ты слышишь, кто-то рядом?  
Притаился за углом, И пронзает взглядом.

Wesker rises on his elbows, grabs her neck - tightens.  
Alex snags her teeth, smiles - a female in hunting, _ruthless._

_"How long have you not slept, Al?"_

His orgasm is a solitary cry and does't receive any echo.

**2008/2009**

A dong, two dong

_It's not over yet, Al._

The wall clock - a cartel from the early Eighteenth century - plays the third chime, the fourth.  
"No." he agrees, bypassing the bruised bodies of the guests.

_Something is still missing._

"I know." he replies, and the blind eye of Excella looks him - she looks _for_ him.

_It wasn't a good death._

"Not even yours." emphasizes Wesker, just glancing at the swollen face of Excella - the torn jaw, the grotesquely raised upward skull, almost an obscene and disgusting birth.

_I'm a little sorry._

"You never liked her."  
The clock marks the fifth dong, the sixth.

_No. No, but sometimes I wonder if it was worth it, Al._

Wesker opens the double doors inlaid with gold, is greeted by a cloud of dust and ash - human crumbs and divine miseries.  
"It's _always_ worth it, Alex."  
Seven dong, eight.

_And now where are we going, Al?_

Wesker controls the surrounding environment - yellowish bubbles have already begun to erupt from the blackish bodies of the dead, small luminescent blisters and pulsating.  
"At home, Alex." he murmurs, adjusting the knot of his tie.  
Nine chimes, ten.

_And we'll be free, Al? Will we really be?_

The Uroboros opens its first offshoots, stretches out towards its master and master.  
Wesker turns around, looks at her - _sees her._  
Alex torments her hands between them, bare feet, barely touched by all the dirt that caked the floor beneath her.

_I'm so tired, Al._

Eleven dong, **twelve.**  
Wesker holds out his hand, waits.  
The Uroboros stands above everything and becomes _her._

**But do you feel like a young god?**  
**You know the two of us are just young gods**  
**and we'll be flying through the streets with the people underneath**  
**and they're running, running, running.**

The world is black and _black._  
The earth _dies_, the air _burns._  
The new god walks among them, flesh_ and_ blood _and_ misery - an unnamed Knight, the consummate King of a throne in ruins.  
Claire struggles - doesn't give up (not yet).  
"Why?" she shouts, and Wesker ignores her.  
"Why did you do this to us?" she gasps when the Uroboros reaches her chest, her throat.  
Wesker tilts his chin slightly towards her, he doesn't seem to even recognize her.  
_It's me_, Claire would like to scream, but the Uroboros gets into her nostrils, goes down - _rips,_ and it's like being torn from the inside.  
_I'm Chris's sister. I'm the bitch who will kill you,_ she would like to promise, but she can't - not anymore.  
The Uroboros invades, breaks, _conquers_ \- destroys, and Claire falls, **dies.**

_Who was she, Al?_

"Nobody." he answers, and _no,_ that's not good - she should _know her_. She should know who she was, what she represented.  
The figure beside him lolls forward, then recovers its balance - inhales, and is a moist, mushy sound.  
"Here we go." he says, waiting for her "We haven't finished yet."

_No?_

"No." replies Wesker, sweeping with his eyes the barren plain and into which the Uroboros descends like a black and tarry tide.

_How many, yet? How many in order that am I complete?_

Wesker closes his eyes, bends his head forward.

_Albert._

"How many will be_ needed,_ Alex."

_The world, Al? _

"If I have to, _yes_."

_Nothing will remain._

"It doesn't matter."

_Do you love me so much, Albert?_

Wesker turns, stares at her - _beyond_ the virus, _beyond_ the disease, _beyond_ the desperate illusion that the Uroboros has created for him.  
Alex responds to his gaze, silent.

_I see._

A half-hearted smile, a hint of laughter.

_Let's go home, Al._

Wesker holds out his arm, Alex accepts it - starts walking again.  
The strength of memories is, sometimes, enough. 

**"It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality."**  
**\- Virginia Woolf -**


End file.
